Wensor said there is a lot concern that the rise of automation will mean fewer accounting jobs.

“Our view is that there’s probably more likely to be different jobs, not fewer jobs. The transition from what finance currently does to what finance will do in the future needs to be managed carefully,” he said.

In theory, automating manual parts of the finance function will leave staff with more time to work on the ‘so what?’ questions.

Finance functions eqipping themselves for the future are now looking for employees who are able to think critically and interpret data.

This goes hand in hand with the increase in organisations investing heavily in their data governance and analytics capabilities. For finance, the emphasis is on becoming more predictive and providing the rest of the business with data-driven commercial advice.

Wensor argues finance is well positioned to seize this opportunity, by combining financial data with operational data (which often sits in multiple silos) to provide insights back to the business.